Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 39

Chapter 39: Nightmare City 1

Actually, everyone was very curious about Zhou Zhou, the main pillar of their team, so they wanted to learn more about him.

Xue Li, Ke Li, and Eddie just came to rely on Zhou Zhou’s help. Although Heya was very powerful, he followed Zhou Zhou in whatever he did, spoke very little, and was like a dedicated bodyguard.

Alvia would play a significant role at critical moments, but he didn’t talk much either, and sometimes had a very low presence and was difficult to approach.

So Zhou Zhou, who got along well with everyone, became the focus of attention. Whether it was his courage, demeanor, or physical condition, they were all quite good. Xue Li and Ke Li started guessing which university Zhou Zhou might be from.

The Imperial Royal Academy? Or the First Military University? Or some other schools?

When Zhou Zhou was utterly perplexed and didn’t know what to say, Alvia suddenly said, “We’re about to reach the exit. We can check the points now.”

“Can we check now? I wonder how many points I’ll get this time.”

“I feel like my spiritual power has increased a lot this time.”

Everyone’s attention was immediately diverted. After all, when it came to playing games, points and the increase in spiritual power were of utmost importance. The few of them quickly checked their task panels.

Heya casually opened his task panel, but his gaze kept wandering towards Zhou Zhou. Just now, he heard that Zhou Zhou seemed reluctant to share his information with others, and the Emperor had conveniently resolved the situation for him.

Could it be that Zhou Zhou had some unspeakable secret?

That’s right, his previous mission was to follow Zhou Zhou. Heya suddenly remembered Zhou Zhou’s identity, his identity was unclear, his background was unknown, and he might even be an enemy of the empire. But how could someone like him be an enemy?

Zhou Zhou also lowered his head and pretended to check his task panel, with various charts and data appearing before his eyes, but he couldn’t read a single word.

It was at this moment that he realized the huge gap between him and the others. He knew nothing about the outside world, schools, education, regions, history, or any of the events that had occurred. He was completely unaware of all of it. Previously, no one had asked about these things because they weren’t close enough, but the more time they spent together and the closer their relationship became, the more flaws he would reveal.

Zhou Zhou lowered his head, his long eyelashes trembling slightly, his eyes filled with bewilderment. He felt very uncomfortable, as if something was pressing on his chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.

In the darkness, the other three were happily checking their points. Heya, aided by the light, could only see Zhou Zhou obediently lowering his head, seemingly focused on his task panel.

Only Alvia noticed Zhou Zhou’s abnormality. His ice-blue eyes, seemingly containing boundless coldness, were intently fixed on Zhou Zhou’s profile. When he detected the negative emotions emanating from Zhou Zhou, he slightly furrowed his brow as well.

“I actually broke through 10,000 points this time!” Eddie exclaimed excitedly, looking at the number on his task panel.

“Me too!” Xue Li was so happy that she almost wanted to punch Ke Li out of sheer excitement, but since there were too many people around, she refrained.

Ke Li was also smiling happily. His points had also exceeded 10,000 more than enough to purchase resurrection items. Playing games during off-hours not only earned him money but also trained his spiritual power. He even considered quitting his job to become a professional gamer. However, realizing that he had only obtained such high points by relying on others, he sobered up.

“Zhou Zhou, how many points did you get this time?” Xue Li had already forgotten that they were just wondering which school Zhou Zhou was from. She started inquiring about points since their points were so high this time, Zhou Zhou’s must be even higher.

“Hm?” Zhou Zhou regained his senses and immediately checked his task panel. “This time, I got 100,000 points.”

The three who were just overjoyed: “…”

Eddie stared wide-eyed in shock. 100,000! 100,000! Wait, were they playing the same game?

“How many did you get last time? In the Haunted Villa instance, how many points did you get?” Eddie asked with a trembling voice, guessing that Zhou Zhou’s points would definitely be higher than theirs, but he didn’t expect such an astronomical difference.

Zhou Zhou hadn’t checked his points last time at all. He was solely focused on worrying about whether his identity would be exposed and completely forgot to check his points unless someone reminded him.

So when he heard Eddie’s question, he slowly started searching for it.

“Last time, it was 120,000.”

120,000! Even more than this time!

Eddie looked at Zhou Zhou with reverence: “Master!”

Xue Li calculated that Zhou Zhou’s total points were almost 300,000. They were happy about breaking 10,000 points, while this was the difference between an ordinary person and a master.

Ke Li was also surprised, but then he remembered that in the instance, Zhou Zhou had frightened the NPCs to tears, and in the end, those little NPCs were so afraid of him that they drew the exit. Without Zhou Zhou, they definitely wouldn’t have passed. With such high points, it didn’t seem like a problem. After all, there should only be one person who could scare the NPCs into submission like that, right?

“Hey, do you think there’s a points leaderboard in the game? Our Zhou Zhou might be number one.”

Because Xue Li liked Zhou Zhou as a person, her first thought after surprise and envy was to show off and let more people know how amazing their Zhou Zhou was.

Eddie, who loved gossip, was very well-informed: “There isn’t one yet, because the game has just been launched, and the score difference isn’t huge, so the leaderboard will be announced in a month.”

“It’ll take that long?” Xue Li exclaimed. However, what Eddie said was true. After all, everyone had just started playing the game. With the empire’s huge population, there might be someone with a higher score than Zhou Zhou. Since they were busy with work during the day, they didn’t have an in-depth understanding of the game and didn’t know the average score of other players. Perhaps their own scores didn’t even reach the average.

“The leaderboard hasn’t been opened, but the forum will be available soon,” Eddie stroked his chin. “What do you think? If someone publishes walkthroughs for various instances on the forum, wouldn’t the game become easier to play?”

“Impossible, Zeus wouldn’t leave such a loophole,” Ke Li immediately said. As the nation’s highest-level artificial intelligence, how could it allow other players to exploit loopholes in the game?

Nightmare City was able to stimulate players’ five senses and keep everyone fully engaged precisely because each instance was random and unknown. If they knew everything in advance, what would be the point of playing? Their spiritual power wouldn’t fluctuate at all.

“You’re right. Anyway, it’ll be open tomorrow, so let’s see what happens then,” Eddie had thought about this issue too, so they would observe the situation tomorrow.

A forum?

Zhou Zhou knew what a forum was. People could exchange all kinds of information on forums and ask others questions. Maybe he could use the forum to learn about the outside world and study various subjects, so he wouldn’t reveal himself in front of others anymore.

Just a moment ago, he thought he was doomed, and it wouldn’t be long before his true identity was discovered. But now, everything had suddenly turned around. Zhou Zhou immediately perked up and nodded along with Eddie’s words. Tomorrow, he would go to the forum and find out about the schools on the outside. He would find a very remote school that no one had heard of.

The group chatted casually as they walked towards the exit at Street 01. As they stepped out, the scenery transitioned from pitch black to bright and transparent. They stood at the entrance of a giant tree hollow, feeling relieved as they gazed at the outside view.

“We have to go to work tomorrow, so we’ll log off first. You should get some rest too,” Ke Li said to everyone, and Xue Li waved her hand as well.

Eddie and Zhou Zhou nodded and waved back at them.

The two of them immediately disappeared from their spots. Shortly after, Eddie also bid farewell and logged off.

Zhou Zhou looked at the two people behind him and asked, “Aren’t you logging off?”

Heya hesitated. He didn’t want to leave because being in the game meant his body was asleep, which was equivalent to resting. As long as he replenished enough nutrients on time, he could stay in the full-dive game indefinitely. The others were simply used to their daily routines and felt they wouldn’t have energy the next day if they didn’t log off and get a good night’s sleep.

He was a mercenary, and he hadn’t taken any jobs recently, so it was fine for him to stay here. However, without doing instances, he didn’t seem to have a reason to keep lingering around, and there was also the Emperor…

Thinking of this, Heya glanced at the expressionless Alvia and then told Zhou Zhou, “I’ll log off too.”

As Heya left, Zhou Zhou looked at the last person: “Al, aren’t you logging off?”

Alvia lowered his gaze and looked at Zhou Zhou, then asked back, “What about you? Aren’t you logging off?”

Zhou Zhou shook his head, “I still have something to do, so I’m not logging off.”

“What is it?”

Zhou Zhou used the excuse he had prepared in advance, “I want to buy some items.”

After seeing the flight talisman in Eddie’s hand during the instance, Zhou Zhou became curious about items, wanting to know what other types of items were available. He also planned to buy some to use in instances, so it wasn’t entirely a lie.

“I was planning to buy some items too. Do you mind if we go together?” Although Alvia’s facial expression was very indifferent, it was noticeably different from when others were around. When he was alone with Zhou Zhou, his tone seemed much gentler, but neither of them noticed.

“Sure.”

Items in Nightmare City couldn’t be purchased from the task panel. To buy them, one had to go to the shops in the city, and each shop had different types and purposes for its items. Finding practical and affordable items among them was quite time-consuming.

However, the one thing all the shops had in common was that they all offered resurrection items. After purchasing a resurrection item, no matter how one died in an instance, they could be resurrected. Of course, this resurrection didn’t mean reviving on the spot. Instead, they would be resurrected at the shop where they bought the resurrection item, and the instance mission would be considered a failure, with zero points gained.

Each shop served as a resurrection point. On the vacant lot behind the other side of the shops, white lights would occasionally flash, and players would appear out of thin air one after another, their expressions not very good. After all, resurrection not only meant failing the instance but also losing the ten thousand-point resurrection item, either of which was heartbreaking.

After Zhou Zhou and Alvia entered a shop, they saw several players standing near the vacant lot on the other side of the counter, sighing gloomily with dejected expressions.

Zhou Zhou’s curiosity was piqued, and he stood at the counter, looking back and forth at the items displayed.

Perhaps because they were currently on Celestial Street, which was suspended in mid-air, most of the items were related to flying.

Among them were relatively expensive physical items that could be used directly, such as various wings and various flying vehicles.

There were also slightly cheaper paper items with just a few words scribbled on them, like flight talismans, levitation talismans, and so on.

Zhou Zhou immediately noticed the flight talisman that Eddie had used before and was about to buy a few when he discovered many foods displayed in the corner of the counter.

Outside of instances, only clothes and items could be brought in, while everything else couldn’t be taken. Before doing the Haunted Villa instance, Zhou Zhou happened to have a few candies in his pocket from the restaurant where he had eaten with Qian Le and Heya, but the candies disappeared after he entered the instance.

When he came out of the instance, the candies automatically returned to his pocket.

Now, seeing that the shop actually had food on display, did that mean these foods could be brought into instances?

After inquiring with the shopkeeper and learning that all the food in the shop could be taken into instances, Zhou Zhou immediately changed his target.

“This one, this one, and this one,” he pointed at three different foods on the counter with his finger.

“You want these three?” the sweet-smiling shopkeeper asked.

Zhou Zhou shook his head. He ate everything, and as long as it had a taste, any food seemed incredibly delicious to him. These three items were what Xue Li, Qian Le, and Al disliked, so he didn’t want them.

“Not these three. For everything else, eight servings of each!”

Zhou Zhou’s task panel only had seven contacts: the six-person team from Doll’s House, plus Qian Le and Mo Lan. Buying eight servings meant one for each person, so if they wanted to eat something in the instance, everyone would have some.

No matter who entered the shop, the shopkeeper’s smile had always remained perfect, but she fell silent for a rare moment before asking again, “You want eight servings of everything except those three foods?”

Zhou Zhou nodded. The prices were all marked, and he had calculated that he had enough points.

It was then that the shopkeeper became convinced that a player had indeed bought these foods, which were useless in instances, and had bought a huge amount of them.

Alvia looked at Zhou Zhou, who was staring intently at the food, and asked, “Why don’t you want those few?”  Zhou Zhou turned his head, glanced at him, and explained the reason.

Upon learning that those dishes were disliked by the rest of them, Alvia recalled that he and Zhou Zhou had only eaten together once before. During that meal, he had eaten everything on the table, which was his usual dining habit. So how did Zhou Zhou know he didn’t like that particular dish?

“Because you only took one bite of it, while you had at least two or three bites of the other dishes,” Zhou Zhou turned back, his eyes fixed on the counter as he answered casually.

Alvia paused, stunned. At that time, Zhou Zhou had been eating very attentively, his manners graceful, but his hand never stopped bringing food to his mouth. Yet he had noticed even this small detail. The corner of Alvia’s mouth curved slightly as he watched Zhou Zhou’s slightly curled hair at the back of his head swaying, but he didn’t say anything further.

Since the game hadn’t been running for long, players didn’t have much in hand, so they tried to save points to purchase resurrection items. If they had spare points, they would only buy practical items.

Food, besides allowing them to taste flavors in instances, had no other use. After all, instances had no rules like eating food to replenish health or mana, so players considered food as useless items.

In Nightmare City, spending points to enjoy delicacies from various places and satisfy one’s appetite was one thing, but bringing these useless items into instances was less useful than a single flight talisman.

Therefore, Zhou Zhou’s blatant display of wealth immediately drew the displeasure of a few players who had just been resurrected. These people had not only failed their mission but also had barely any points left. They were feeling depressed when they saw another player nearby wasting a large amount of points to purchase useless items, and the stark contrast with the other person made them feel resentful.

A scruffy-bearded man, crouching at the resurrection point with half-closed eyes, looked towards the two people standing by the counter. Although the two appeared to have exceptional qualities and were clearly no ordinary people, his resentment still compelled him to approach them.

“Hey, you two, did you lose your mind buying these trash items?”

Alvia’s gaze was fixed on the back of Zhou Zhou’s head, his slightly curled hair bouncing with his movements. He seemed to have not heard what the person behind them had said.

However, Zhou Zhou furrowed his brow, turned around, and refuted, “Food is not trash.”

When the man saw Zhou Zhou’s face, he suddenly widened his eyes, as if he had seen something terrifying, and shouted loudly, “It’s you!”